Sammy wrote this “story” and asked me to blog about it. I’m not sure why, and trying to ask Sammy a “why” question is about as productive as trying to build a house out of popsicle sticks.

I will put what he wrote word for word. The only thing I am changing is his birth family’s identifying information. I am making no changes to his spelling or grammar.

Sammy’s life with attachment disorder

It was a time when I could never get my life strait. I was born and my mother M and my Dad T were never there. I was the second oldest. We would... more

Those are the words my father uttered to me all the way down the aisle at my wedding a little over eighteen years ago. He offered that at any point I could back out, turn around and leave. This was done partly out of love and partly because he wasn’t crazy about the “boy” I was about to marry. He's changed his mind since then.

Sometimes parents and kids have the same feelings when adoption day comes. Kids doubt whether or not these parents are really going to stick with them. Some kids have a legitimate reason to ask this since they have been adopted several times... more

There are anniversaries of things that are very hard for us as adults. The same goes for our kids. They have these amazing internal clocks that let them know when the anniversary is, even if they don’t realize what it is the anniversary of.

Today is a biggie in our family. It’s the day, four years ago, when my kids were removed. This affects Sammy greatly. My husband and I are handling it much better, but it’s still a major trigger for Sammy. He doesn’t need to look at a calendar to know when it is. It happened the first day of school.

We had gone through... more

One of the problems with children who are sexually abused, is that they can become perpetrators themselves. That is not saying that all children will, but it is something to be cautious of, especially if you have other children in the home.

Social services and foster parents do not always know if a child has become a perpetrator. This information would usually come from another child who has become a victim, but not all victims tell. The victim may have been threatened to be quiet, or the abusing child may actually be a sibling... more

In my last blog, I explained all the wrong things done when dealing with my own sexual abuse.

What do you do if you truly want to help a child instead of sweeping it under the rug? There are plenty of things you can do.

Acknowledge the abuse – In my own personal opinion that is one of the things that many people do wrong. There may be comfort, physical exams, legal issues, etc., but actually putting... more

One of my readers asked for my input about what helped me deal with my childhood abuse. Read this blog for the story.

Unfortunately, I am a great example of what NOT to do with a child.

My sexual abuse was barely acknowledged and in the past few years, my mother has taken to denying it happened at all. Naturally she denies that she physically or emotionally abused me.

I never received any counseling, and my... more

Faith has been writing some terrific blogs on the resiliency of children. Personally, I hate that saying, but I love Faith’s blogs.

Many people say that it’s OK to move a child several times, because kids are resilient and they will recover. Kids in foster care have already been through horrible events, and moving them because they are “resilient” just leads to more horror. They are “marked” for life by the events that they have already endured.

This... more

For the second year in a row, Nancy Ashe was one of the biggest hit speakers at the ATN conference. I highly encourage you to order the DVD of her talk and the question and answer sessions she did.

If you are not familiar with Nancy, let me tell you a little bit about her. First of all, she was the editor of this blog up until a couple of months ago. She is the person who got me to blog.

She is an adult who readily admits that she is attachment affected. Her talk was a very honest look at her life and the mindset of attachment... more

When I was finally able to sort of sit down last night, the TV was on TNT. I always have the TV on for background noise. Silence is weird to me so it’s always on, but I rarely pay attention. When I did, the show that was on was a new series called “Heartland”.

The premise of the show involves organ transplants. One of the story lines last night included a uterus transplant. Before you think this is quite out there, the first transplant was done in Saudi Arabia in 2002. See... more

My morning started off a little differently than expected. Laying in bed last night I was contemplating what to write for a blog today, and quite honestly, I can’t remember what it was because I always read my e-mail when I get up in the morning.

I was greeted by a great change in plans when I saw that one of our speakers dropped out for the ATN conference, and Julie... more